Lesley Lokko, a Ghanaian-Scottish academic, writer, and curator, has been named one of the BBC's 100 most influential women of 2024. The prestigious list highlights women from around the globe who are recognized for their resilience and their contributions toward driving change in their respective fields. Lokko's inclusion reflects her groundbreaking work in architectural education, her commitment to diversity and inclusion, and her focus on addressing global challenges like decolonization and decarbonization.
Liverpool Waterfront, location of the Maritime Museum & International Slavery Museum, Liverpool by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, drone image 2024. Image Courtesy of National Museums Liverpool
The redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum (ISM) and Maritime Museum in Liverpool, UK, achieved planning approval in Autumn 2024. On this occasion, ArchDaily's editor Mohieldin Gamal had the opportunity to engage in a conversation with Kossy Nnachetta, partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the office in charge of the redevelopment. She discusses her architectural journey, key considerations of her practice, and the challenges and opportunities of designing the Maritime and International Slavery Museum, a joint project that had to address several sensitive and historically important issues. Kossy draws on her human-centered and community-driven design approach, describing how this development builds upon Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' extensive portfolio of cultural projects, adaptive reuse, and historical restorations.
Alero Olympio (1959-2005) was an architect and builder known for an intimately ecological approach to architecture. Born in Ghana, she divided her practice between Ghana and Scotland. She focused on work that prioritized people and was sincerely committed to social and environmental sustainability, prioritizing using locally sourced materials.
Her work legacy includes physical buildings like the Kokrobitey Institute, her advocacy for earthen constructions, research on sustainable forestry products, and so much more. However, a gap exists in the institutionalized archives of her work, leading to the current ongoing efforts to build a comprehensive archive of her contributions. The 2024 Womxn in Design and Architecture (WDA) annual conference organized by Princeton University School of Architecture made a significant contribution. It featured exhibitions, seminars, and panel discussions that reflected on Alero Olympio's legacy and examined the architectural insights her work continues to offer.
In early 2018, spatial practitioner and Bartlett lecturer Neba Sere hosted a panel discussion at London's Architecture Foundation, where she was one of six young trustees. The topic: beginnings. How to go about them, move ahead, and transform them into something that lasts. Six years later, she looks back on the event as a beginning in itself: that day marked the creation of a WhatsApp group that would turn into Black Females in Architecture (BFA). BFA is now a 500-strong global membership network co-directed by Sere and fellow architects Selasi Setufe and Akua Danso.
BFA was initiated in response to the need for visibility of black women and female-identifying people with black heritage in architecture and the built environment. Last year, the group celebrated its fifth anniversary with the showing of a short film and a panel discussion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Now, after putting in the groundwork of spreading information about the lack of diversity and equality in the industry and increasing their numbers, BFA is gearing up to drive physical change.
Handel Architects designed the third tallest in Los Angeles, a 63-story high-rise 265 meters high in the Historical Downtown L.A. Featuring a 150 meters second tower, affordable residential housing, and community spaces, the "Angels Landing" will be the largest and tallest development to be built by Black developers in the United States, marking a milestone in the real estate industry, as in L.A.'s skyline. In partnership with The Peebles Corporation and MacFarlane Partners, the complex is scheduled to open in 2027 and will create more than 8,300 new jobs during construction.
Doreen Adengo, Ugandan architect and trailblazer, passed away on July the 22nd of this year, after battling a long-term illness. She founded Adengo Architecture, a studio based out of her home city of Kampala. A designer who studied in the United States, worked in firms in New York, Washington, and London, and was teaching at Uganda Martyrs University – her legacy is nothing short of extraordinary. It is a legacy that spans disciplines and geographies – but a legacy, too, that is deeply rooted in the context of Africa, Uganda, and Kampala.
Doreen Adengo. Image Courtesy of Adengo Architecture
Doreen Adengo, architect from Kampala, Uganda has passed away, as reported by African Futures Institute’s Instagram Account, after a long battle with cancer. Founder of Adengo Architecture in 2015, a research-based multi-disciplinary practice operating out of her hometown Kampala, Doreen, a registered architect in the United States and Uganda, had earned her undergraduate at the Catholic University (Bachelor of Science in Architecture) and graduate studies at Yale (Masters of Architecture). She has taught at The New School and Pratt Institute in New York, the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture, and was currently teaching at Uganda Martyrs University. In celebration of International Women’s Day 2022, Doreen Adengo was recognized by ArchDaily as one of the established practitioners implicated in change.
AIA'S 2024 Ppresident-elect Kimberly Dowdell. Image Courtesy of Kimberly N. Dowdell
The American Institute of Architects has elected Kimberly Dowdell as the 100th president of the organization, making her the first Black woman to hold the position in AIA’s 165-year history. Delegates at the AIA’s annual meeting voted Dowdell to serve first as vice president for 2023. Afterward, she will become president in 2024.
During her campaign for president, Dowdell has expressed her support for minorities, while also making clear that she wants to be an AIA president for all. Her platform is based on four key areas of interest: supporting architects in practice, creating a sense of belonging and ensuring access to the architectural profession and education, addressing climate concerns, and designing for the future, considering rapid technological advances. “I firmly believe that the AIA has the power and potential to better serve our profession” she declared in a video made prior to the election.
The President of La Biennale di Venezia, Roberto Cicutto, and the Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, Lesley Lokko by Jacopo Salvi. Image Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia
Running from May 20th to November 26th, 2023 in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and at various sites around Venice, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition will be titled: The Laboratory of the Future. Announced today by the President of La Biennale di Venezia, Roberto Cicutto, and the Curator of the exhibition, Lesley Lokko, the theme and title of this edition will consider the African continent as the protagonist of the future. “There is one place on this planet where all these questions of equity, race, hope, and fear converge and coalesce. Africa. At an anthropological level, we are all African. And what happens in Africa happens to us all”, explains Lokko.
Niamey 2000, by United4design, a collective that includes Kamara, adds density to the city without disturbing the area’s cultural fabric. It is built chiefly of locally made, unfired earth bricks to avoid using imported concrete and steel.. Image Courtesy of TORSTEN SEIDEL
Architect Mariam Kamara—founder of Niamey, Niger-based firm Atelier Masōmī—is a contrarian of design pedagogy as it is largely practiced today. To Kamara, modern is not synonymous with European forms, architecture is not only for Westerners to define, and the so-called canon of great buildings actually ignores most of the built world. The Niger-based architect's rapidly growing practice informs a series of lectures she has delivered recently at MIT, Columbia University GSAPP, the African Futures Institute in Ghana, and Harvard GSD.
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Background photograph courtesy of Charlie Hui, Viswerk. 2020
Led by architectural designers Khensani de Klerk and Solange Mbanefo, Matri-Archi is a collective based between Switzerland and South Africa that aims to bring African women together for the development of spatial education in African cities. Through design practice, writing, podcasts, and other initiatives, Matri-Archi — one of ArchDaily's Best New Practices of 2021 — focuses on the recognition and empowerment of women in the spatial field and architectural industry.
ArchDaily had the opportunity to talk to the co-directors of the collective on hegemonic space, informal architecture, technology, local idiosyncrasies, and the future of African and global cities. Read the full interview below.
While women make up an equal part of the population, they are not equally represented when imagining, planning, designing, and constructing the built environment around the globe. Thriving to rebalance forces and close the gap of gender inequality, the world is moving slowly but surely into a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive future. Looking back at 2021, this year has seen the selection of Lesley Lokko as curator of the 2023 Venice Biennale, Anne Lacaton winning with her partner Jean-Philippe Vassal the 2021 Pritzker Prize, the 6th woman to ever receive the award, and the MAXXI Museum celebrating the transformative role of female architects in the profession's evolution over the last century.
The 2022 Women's International Day, according to the UN is centered on “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, focusing on females involved in building a sustainable future, while the official platform of the 8th of March is concentrating its efforts on breaking the bias and eliminating discrimination. Recognizing every single day the female force that shapes the built environment, ArchDaily on the other hand, turned to its global audience this year, seeking input to shed light on even more women architects, from the four corners of the world. Always trying to reach new realms, this selection of 25 professionals is looking to adjust the historical narrative by highlighting pioneers of the field, to present established practitioners molding the world we live in, and to share profiles of activists and scholars, implicated in change.
Courtesy of UN-Habitat and Global Utmaning/ Edited by ArchDaily
The built environment destined for everyone is still, to this day, not envisioned by everyone. Last year on Women’s day, we stated that “the battle for equality is far from over”. Highlighting continuously women architects and gender-related topics, this year, ArchDaily is turning the tables and seeking guidance from our audience. We highly value our reader's opinions, and now more than ever, we are seeking your input, to reach more realms and shed light on unfamiliar female figures to the international scene.
In your opinion, who are the female architects missing from our platform? Help us put the spotlight on women implicated in the built environment and nominate major female characters from across the globe, so that we can adjust the narratives, feature their work, and share knowledge and tools for a more inclusive world. These women can belong to any part of history: from young upcoming forces to established individuals or firms to figurines that were part of architecture's history. They can also have diverse professional backgrounds, from architects, planners, designers, to builders and decision-makers, all profiles involved in shaping the environment that surrounds us are eligible.
A little less than two years after the onset of a global pandemic, inclusion in the architecture profession is unfortunately still a limited conversation. A 2020 survey by the UK’s Architects' Journal revealed a sobering amount of obstacles for Black architects in the UK, and in the United States, prominent Black practitioners such as Mabel O. Wilson of Studio & have questioned the Eurocentric nature of a large amount of architectural study.
Questioning the new now, especially with the new challenges of Covid-19, around the world, cities are advocating for structural change and collective action. Berlin questions, an annual, multi-day conference and a platform for transdisciplinary dialogue, in its 2021 edition “Metropolis: The New Now”, tackled the immediate present, creating a place for debate. Dedicated to local solutions to global challenges, the event took on a hybrid format, at various locations in Berlin and online, resembling the world we live in.
ArchDaily had the chance to meet up with Lesley Lokko, architect, academic, and novelist at Berlin Questions, to discuss her talk “Africa as the lab for the future”, her visions for the future of architecture education and the future of big cities on a social, cultural and urban level.
Parpend, a design studio from Lagos, Nigeria, interviews every year a group of architects to discuss their favorite projects and how they created them. Believing firmly that design should be a fusion of function and expression, statements are compiled in a publication in order to highlight the designers’ creative process to achieving good design.
Entitled “PERSPECTIVE”, this edition of the report, destined for designers and non-designers alike, examines 4 projects with 3 designers: Seun Oduwole, Principal designer at SI.SA talks about the JK Randle Centre for Yoruba History and Culture, on Lagos Island; Tosin Oshinowo, Director at cmDesign Atelier discusses a Bahá’í temple competition and an art space for Victor Ehikhamenor, a prominent Nigerian artist. Moreover, James Inedu-George, Head of Design at HTL Africa explores a mosque contest.
Grupo BANGA. Em sentido horário: Yolana Lemos, Kátia Mendes, Gilson Mendes, Mamona Duca e Elsimar de Freitas. Image Cortesia de Grupo BANGA
Investing in virtual projects has probably never been more timely, after all, we have been partially deprived of contact with the concrete world. Exploring the singularities of the present moment and the power of online engagement, a group of architects from Angola started an ambitious work: pursuing a new identity for Angolan architecture.
Formed by Yolana Lemos, Kátia Mendes, Mamona Duca, Elsimar de Freitas, and Gilson Menses, Grupo BANGA is responsible for the project Cabana de Arte (Art Hut), which combines the efforts of young architects and artists from Angola in virtual works that seek to bring visibility to emerging professionals and bring architecture closer to people's daily lives.
Approaching the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities. A new spatial contract. Learning how will we live together. These thoughts brought by Hashim Sarkis, curator of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale 2021, may raise important questions about how architecture crosses and materializes social and political conflicts. To understand a more decentralized point of view, which indicates possibilities other than those dictated by normative mindsets, we interviewed Tainá de Paula, a Brazilian architect and community mobilizer in poor suburban areas.
_-_Vista_da_Pra%C3%A7a.jpg?1601059705 "Projeto arquitetônico virtual para a exposição \"Tchitundu-Hulu, a história resgatada\". Image Cortesia de Grupo BANGA")
_-_Planta_de_Cobertura.jpg?1601059767 "Planta do projeto para a exposição \"Mfwanana, Dialetos da Terra\". Image Cortesia de Grupo BANGA")
_Eu_sou_o_sol_-_as_marcas_perpetuadas_em_mim_(2)_-_Sala_de_Exposi%C3%A7%C3%A3o.jpg?1601059792 "Projeto arquitetônico virtual para a exposição \"Eu sou o sol - as marcas perpetuadas em mim\". Image Cortesia de Grupo BANGA")
